


Unadulterated Loathing

by fy_faen_fishcakes



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Lovers, Fuckbuddies, I just love him a lot, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, M/M, R's life is a mess, Slow Burn, Sort Of, accidental roommates, and they were ROOMMATES, i'll add tags as i go, kind of, lowkey so is E's, oblivious idiots, there is way too much courf in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fy_faen_fishcakes/pseuds/fy_faen_fishcakes
Summary: On principle, Grantaire doesn’t like school. He hated sixth form, he hated secondary. Because what does any of it matter? If he does the maths homework or not, if he flunks an essay in history, if he skips a day in favour of getting drunk with Éponine – none of that makes a difference in the long run.It is with this attitude that Grantaire begins his first day of university. At least here he can skip classes and drink to his heart’s content.The gorgeous roommate (who also happens to be an asshole) might be a problem, though.Or the Grantaire-and-Enjolras-are-roommates-who-hate-each-other-but-also-want-to-fuck-each-other-and-oops-end-up-falling-in-love-with-each-other AU that no one ever wanted but here you go anyway.





	Unadulterated Loathing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovely people, this is my first fic for this fandom because I've read pretty much all existing enjoltaire fanfiction and decided it was time to write some of my own, so enjoy! I have quite a bit written already so I'll try to update like once a week (?) but I'm notoriously bad at sticking to things, so take that with a pinch of salt.
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr [tumblr](https://fy-faen-fishcakes.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/fiskekaker_fem) as I don't have any friends in this fandom and I'd really like to make some! Oh and also if anyone would be interested in betaing for this fic, hmu because that would be much appreciated! Ok I'll shut up now; on with the show!
> 
> (and yes, the title is from Wicked)

On principle, Grantaire doesn’t like school. He hated sixth form, he hated secondary. Primary, at least, seemed fun, but he can barely remember anything – only afternoons spent painting and running around, and one maths homework where all he had to do was bake a cake. Since the age of ten though, he’s learned to hate school of any kind.

Generally, he loves learning. He’s been known to spend whole nights reading, fiction and non-fiction alike, or sometimes even just Wikipedia pages; something about that raw information thrills him. But as soon as he’s forced to learn for reasons other than enjoyment – as soon as he’s going to be assessed on it – something in him snaps. ‘A natural instinct to disobey authority’, one school report had said, which wasn’t far off. He knows his place in the world – a pointless spec drifting through orbit – it’s his teachers that hadn’t seemed to know theirs. Because what does any of it matter? If he does the maths homework or not, if he flunks an essay in history, if he skips a day in favour of getting drunk with Éponine – none of that makes a difference in the long run.

It is with this attitude that Grantaire begins his first day of university. At least here he can skip classes and drink to his heart’s content. His parents aren’t here to stop him.

.

He’s about ready to collapse when he gets to his room. Most kids – well, not kids anymore – have parents or friends helping them lug their suitcases and boxes into their rooms. Not him. He’s never really done friends (well, aside from Éponine) and his parents are perfectly aware of how he feels about them right now. Luckily, they had agreed to let him get a private room, so at least when he enters his little flat he won’t have to deal with any peppy drama majors or stuck-up STEM students.

Thank god for small mercies.

The key get stuck in the door, _of fucking course it does_ , but after a few minutes of fumbling he manages to get it open, and stumbles into his room, hand already reaching for the flask in his pocket, and stops short.

There’s two beds.

Why are there two beds?

He’s too tried for this shit, he just wants to sleep. Or drink. Or drink and then sleep, that works best. He kicks off his shoes, collapses on the bed furthest from the window and takes a long drink from his flask, throwing himself back on the pillows. He sighs as he stares at the ceiling, dread pooling in his stomach at the prospect of the next three years of his life that were never supposed to happen, and resolves to sort out this whole two bed situation when he wakes. There’s no way he’s putting up with a _roommate_ for a whole year, not when he specifically requested a private room. The thought of having to share the space where, quite frankly, he plans on spending most of his time, with some wannabe-poet English student or over-enthusiastic sports person makes him feel queasy, and it’s with this thought in mind that he drifts into a fitful sleep.

.

It’s several hours later when he wakes, and he groans at the stale taste in his mouth and discomfort at having slept in jeans. It must be early afternoon by now, he figures.

He starts when he sits up. There’s someone sat at the desk in front of him, facing out the window. The two-bed situation comes rushing back into his mind. Grantaire can only see his back, but he figures this is the roommate that he isn’t supposed to have.

“Hey,” he calls, and then again, louder, when he doesn’t hear him.

The figure jolts and turns around, ripping headphones out of his ears and _holy fuck_ it feels like he’s been pnched in the stomach because this might be the most beautiful person Grantaire’s seen in his entire life. The person – _Apollo_ , he thinks, breathless – offers a tense smile.

“Hi,” he says. “I guessing you’re my roommate.” He gets up and offers a hand for Grantaire to shake. “I’m Enjolras.”

“Grantaire,” he replies, glancing over at the desk in an effort to look anywhere but at this fucking god stood before him. “I’m sorry but I think there’s been a mix u- were you studying?” Enjolras looks behind him at the pile of books on the desk, several of them open, and grins sheepishly.

“Yeah.”

Grantaire blinks up at him. “It’s the first day. Classes don’t start for a week.”

Enjolras shrugs, but he still looks tense. “Figured I may as well read ahead.”

“What are you studying?” Grantaire asks, and then mentally kicks himself. He’s supposed to be getting rid of this dude, not making conversation.

“Law.” Fuck. They’re both studying the same subject. He’s not sure why this makes it ten time worse, but it does. They’ll probably have lectures together, oh god.

Grantaire tries for nonchalance. “Oh, me too.” Something in Enjolras seems to relax at this. If only he knew. “You wanna be a lawyer?”

Enjolras shrugs, but grins like he can’t help himself. “I just want to help people. Fight for them. I figured being a lawyer would be one of the best ways to do that, although I think I’d like to be a judge someday.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. He can’t help himself. “They all start out that way.”

Enjolras blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Set on helping people, I mean. Let me guess, you wanna to do pro bono work? Just give it a decade, you’ll be working for some big corporate company in no time. If you’re any good, that is.”

“Oh? And why do you think that?” Enjolras demands, smile wiped from his face. Grantaire just shrugs.

“People follow where money leads. Eventually you’ll tire of barely getting paid.”

“So you want to work for big corporations then?”

“I guess. That’s where the money is,” he says casually, and it’s so far from the truth he wants to laugh. Grantaire doesn’t want anything to do with law, never has.

Enjolras looks a mixture of disappointed and angry (a look he’s seen on his parent’s faces far too many times to keep track of), and Grantaire decides he should probably end the conversation here.

“Listen, I’m actually not supposed to have a roommate. I applied for a private room.” Enjolras frowns and looks like he’s going to interrupt, so Grantaire presses forward before he can cut him off. “I just prefer to be by myself” – well that sounded sadder than he’d intended – “and when I came in there were two beds, but I was really tired so I figured I’d deal with it when I woke up, and now I’m awake, so I’m just gonna head down to student services or wherever and get this sorted out.”

Grantaire can’t read Enjolras’s expression. He’s probably relived that he doesn’t have to room with the guy who just made fun of his ambitions barely five minutes into knowing him.

Enjolras just gives a curt nod and sits back down at the desk, putting his headphones in. Grantaire feels a pang of sorrow at having apparently upset him, but he knows it’s for the best. They might have a couple of classes together, but Enjolras probably isn’t gonna talk to Grantaire again after today, so there’s no harm done.

.

There’s harm done. It’s evening when Grantaire gets back to the room. He’d had to wait in a queue for hours only to piss off the woman at student services within two minutes of speaking to her and been angrily told to come back tomorrow.

So, he’ll be sharing a room with Enjolras tonight. He tries to remain hopeful that it’ll only be one night, but optimism was never his forte. And the woman at the desk really didn’t take a liking to him. Somehow this whole ‘university experience’ is turning out worse than he’d expected, which he hadn’t thought possible.

God, he misses Éponine. He considers calling her just to rant for a bit, but dismisses that thought in favour of having a shower and going to sleep. It wouldn’t be the same as actually seeing her anyway. There’s also the fact that he’s sharing a room with Enjolras, who’s most of the reason he wants to rant in the first place. Enjolras, who is currently having a shower, a fact that Grantaire is finding more than a little distracting.

He’s singing something to himself. He must not have heard Grantaire get back. It’s an awful song and he’s practically tone deaf, but Grantaire can do nothing but smile stupidly to himself. Maybe the roommate situation isn’t too bad. Enjolras and Grantaire have different opinions, sure, but they can get past that. Enjolras seems nice enough, and it helps that they’re both studying law.

Grantaire is in the midst of a Hollywood style fantasy in which him an Enjolras are roommates and close friends, who walk to classes and get drunk together, who borrow each other’s notes and share books about Bentham, when Enjolras walks out of the shower wearing only a towel and two things happen that kill that daydream.

One: Enjolras is standing, almost naked, in the doorway to the bathroom, hair dripping water down his shoulders, looking like something carved out of fucking marble, and Grantaire is way too attracted to this man to room with him and not die.

Two: Enjolras is scowling at him. Glaring, even. There’s not a hint of the friendly smile he’d offered earlier, nor the carefree way he’d been singing in the shower just minutes earlier.

So, Grantaire’s crushing on his accidental roommate, and said accidental roommate hates him. This is going to be fun.

.

As expected, Grantaire does not get much further with the student services woman the next day. Or the day after that. Or for the rest of the week.

He also doesn’t get much further with Enjolras. By the time classes roll around, they’ve had a grand total of eleven conversations, and ten of those have been arguments.

It’s pretty safe to say that Grantaire is not a fan of his roommate (aside from finding him ridiculously attractive, but that seems fair enough. Grantaire’s begun likening him to Apollo in is head), nor is he a fan of the fact that he has a roommate in the first place.

The feeling – Enjolras has made quite clear – is more than mutual.

They’ve settled into a routine of awkwardly dancing around each other. Grantaire spends a couple of nights a week sleeping in the beds of strangers (something he probably would’ve done regardless of the roommate situation. He’s never been one for relationships, but that doesn’t mean sex is off the cards). On the nights where he does sleep in their room, Enjolras is normally gone by the time Grantaire wakes up – in the library, he assumes – and Grantaire doesn’t normally get back until Enjolras is asleep. He hasn’t exactly made any friends, but he’s met a few people in bars who seem up for getting wasted any day of the week, and he tends to spend his evenings drinking with them, or drinking alone if they’re not around. Alcohol is the one constant though.

A month into this routine, Grantaire arrives back at their dorm before midnight for a skype date with Éponine, who’d told him that if he her called from a bar one more time, she’d hang up and he would never see her again. It’s barely nine o’clock, and he hasn’t been back this early since the first week of rooming with Enjolras, but he’s just hoping that the universe will smile at him and grant him an empty bedroom for this one night.

Of course, he’d never be that lucky.

He opens the door just as someone else is leaving from the other side, and is met with a shock of dark hair to rival Grantaire’s own and a pair of eyes widening first in surprise, then confusion, then delight.

“Ohhhh,” the man says, rather dramatically. “ _You’re_ the roommate.”

“Um. Hi?”

“I’m Courfeyrac,” he says, offering his hand. Grantaire shakes it rather tentatively. He hadn’t really considered that Enjolras would have friends – why people would want to be his friend, he has no idea. Enjolras is rude and vindictive and seems to always be angry. Maybe all of Enjolras’ friends are equally awful, in which case he’d like nothing to do with them. The man before him is grinning though, which is something he’s never seen Enjolras do.

Courfeyrac steps aside to let Grantaire in, but make no moves to leave.

“Why Enjolras,” he drawls, still looking at Grantaire, “it all makes _sense_ now.”

“Shut up,” Enjolras says. His jaw is clenched but he looks more exhausted than angry.

Grantaire has no idea what’s going on, and doesn’t really wish to. He just wants Courfeyrac to leave so he can call Éponine. Enjolras seems to have the same idea.

“I’m Grantaire,” he offers into the silence that has become awkward.

“Oh, I know. You’re famous among Les Amis. Well, infamous. Anyway, I was just heading out, but you should come to a meeting sometime or something, we’d all love to meet you. Bye!” and with that he was out the door.

Grantaire turns to Enjolras. “Meeting?”

Enjolras just waves a hand in the air, dismissive. “Les Amis de l’ABC, it’s a society I set up with Courfeyrac and some other friends. We campaign for human rights and social justice.”

“Can first years start societies?”

“If they’re very persuasive, yes.”

Grantaire nods, processing this new information. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?” He knows it’s a stupid question as soon as it’s out of his mouth, but he can’t exactly take it back.

“We don’t exactly…” He watches Enjolras fumble for a way to say ‘like each other’ without sounding rude. “We’re not close or anything,” he eventually settles on.

Grantaire snorts. “That’s an understatement.”

“Well who’s fault is that?” Enjolras snaps back.

Grantaire raises his hands in surrender, “calm down Apollo, jeez,” and then realises his mistake.

Fuck.

“Apollo?”

Fuck fuck _fuck_.

“Yeah, you know. Arrogant, vengeful, vindictive. Thinks too highly of himself. Plus, you have blond hair, so: Apollo.” Grantaire doesn’t mention that the real reason he calls him Apollo is because he looks like a fucking god. That would not be helpful.

Enjolras looks furious. More than that, though, he looks hurt, and Grantaire feels a twinge of pity. Until he opens his mouth.

“You know what? Fuck you, Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and walks out, slamming the door behind him.

Grantaire adds ‘very short fuse’ to the list of things he doesn’t like about Enjolras and sighing, drops down onto his bed. He’s tempted to skip the call to Éponine in favour of just sleeping (the late nights spent mostly in bars have left him exhausted twenty-four seven) but the threat of her never speaking to him again drifts to front of his mind.

He stares at the screen, at the pixelated image of himself chewing his bottom lip as he waits for her to pick up, greeting her with a cheery “fuck my life”, when she does. She just rolls her eyes.

“How’s the roommate from Hell?”

“Hellish.”

“Well, at least he’s not twelve and going through a shoplifting phase.”

Grantaire smiles. If anything can cheer him up, it’s Gavroche. “What’s he stealing?”

“Only food! It barely counts!” comes a familiar shout from off-screen, to which Éponine turns around and yells, rather aggressively, “go to bed, you pest!”

When she turns back to face Grantaire, they’re both grinning.

“How’s it going, just you two?” As soon as she was out of compulsory education, Éponine bought a tiny flat with money she’d saved up and moved her and Gavroche out of their parents’ house. They’d barely noticed.

“It’s good. Better, anyway. And work is good. It feels nice to be making proper money, not just part time wages.”

“I’m jealous.”

“Need I remind you of the annoying, shoplifting twelve-year-old who won’t go to bed when he’s told?”

“I would gladly swap with you.”

“Oh, come on, is he really that bad?”

“Yes. We disagree about everything, he’s so stupidly idealistic. And he gets annoyed at everything I do.”

“Well, you are quite annoying.”

Grantaire glares at her. “So is he! It’s so shit, Éponine.” He sighs. “I miss you.”

She pulls a face. “Gross. If you’re gonna get emotional, I suppose I could get Saturday off in a few weeks’ time and come visit you. I’ll have to bring Gav though.”

Grantaire grins. This maybe the first good this that’s happened in a month. He tells her as much.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she rolls her eyes but she’s smiling. “And that way I can judge this roommate for myself.”

They talk for nearly three hours before Grantaire decides that he should probably go to his early lecture tomorrow, so needs to get some sleep. Enjolras still hasn’t come back.

“Don’t drink your parents into destitution,” Éponine says by way of farewell. “God knows they deserve it, but your liver doesn’t.”

.

It’s still several hours later before he actually manages to get to sleep; it’s the first night he’s gone to sleep sober in at least two weeks. No way is he gonna make that lecture.

Everything about this semester is a disaster. His liver agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this was kind of a world building chapter, next chapter more will happen I promise! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated :)


End file.
